Former seafood workers file lawsuits over wages, sexual harassment

Mike Lawrence @MikeLawrenceSCT

Wednesday

Jun 8, 2016 at 8:10 PMJun 8, 2016 at 8:10 PM

Former line workers at a Fall River scallop plant are suing the temp agency that hired them, claiming below-minimum wages, and have filed a labor complaint saying they were unjustly fired in April after raising concerns about alleged abuses including sexual harassment, according to court documents and statements provided by a national advocacy group.

FALL RIVER — Former line workers at a Fall River scallop plant have filed a labor complaint saying they were unjustly fired in April after raising concerns about alleged abuses including sexual harassment, according to court documents and statements provided by a national advocacy group.

They are also suing the temp agency that hired them, claiming below-minimum wages, the advocacy group said.

Providence, R.I. residents Mirna Pacaja and Margarita Fuentes each worked for several years at the Atlantic Capes Fisheries scallop processing plant in Fall River, through temporary employment facilitated by BJ’s Service Company in New Bedford.

They are the plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit filed March 18 and pending in Bristol County Superior Court. The suit alleges that BJ’s and its late president, Robert M. Hunt, illegally charged workers an $8 per round trip transportation fee for vans that would take them to and from work at Atlantic Capes.

The lawsuit cites an Atlantic Capes facility in New Bedford, but company representatives said Wednesday that the seafood processor hasn’t had facilities in New Bedford for at least five years. Atlantic Capes operates out of an IQF Custom Packing plant at 140 Waldron Road in Fall River. Fuentes has worked for the company, through BJ’s, since 2013 and Pacaja since about 2012, court documents said.

The suit alleges that the fee was greater than 3 percent of their daily wages and reduced those wages to below the minimum, both violations of state law.

Vanasse added that neither company contracts out van services for employees, or charges a transportation fee to workers.

Vanasse also is a lead organizer of the National Coalition for Fishing Communities and executive director of the affiliated Saving Seafood, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group that advocates for the seafood industry. He said his statements Wednesday were given solely as a representative of BJ’s and Atlantic Capes, a member of the coalition.

Pacaja also is listed in a pending National Labor Relations Board complaint, against Atlantic Capes and BJ’s. The complaint alleges that Pacaja, Esdeyra Rosales and about 10 other co-workers were fired in April, after raising concerns about workplace conditions.

Attorney Elizabeth Tully, of Boston-based Justice at Work, which provides legal services to low-wage immigrant workers, is listed on both the lawsuit and the labor complaint.

The pending cases and Pacaja’s comments came to light with Wednesday’s release of a report by advocacy group National Guestworker Alliance (NGA), which cited its case studies and surveys of workers in New Bedford and Louisiana, and said labor violations and other abuses of migrant workers remain rampant in the seafood processing industry.

“Seafood processing workers are routinely subjected to severe forms of exploitation by companies producing cheap seafood for major retailers and food distributors,” former H-2B guestworker Daniel Castellanos, an NGA cofounder, said in a press release accompanying the report. “And when they speak out or try to resist abuse, they are punished severely for it.”

In a translated statement provided by the NGA, Pacaja — also spelled “Pacaha” — describes her experiences moving from Guatemala with her family and working for several years on Atlantic Capes processing lines. She said another worker, whom she called a supervisor, “sexually harassed me and the other women on the line constantly. He rubbed up against us, touched us everywhere, said horrible things about what he wanted to do to us.”

Pacaja said she repeatedly told the man to stop, but the harassment continued.

“We decided to organize against the abuse,” she said. “A group of us joined Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores (CCT), an affiliate of the National Guestworker Alliance. We had meetings about what we wanted: an end to sexual harassment and verbal abuse, better wages, and benefits.”

She and other workers brought their concerns to Atlantic Capes supervisors “multiple times,” Pacaja said, before they were fired in April.

“The allegation that there was sexual harassment between a supervisor and an employee is not true,” Vanasse said. “According to Atlantic Capes, the relationship of the two individuals involved, as defined under employment law, is that of co-worker, not supervisor and employee.”

Statements provided by Atlantic Capes said that when workers approached supervisors with concerns in December 2015, “ACF listened and diligently implemented a number of changes to improve their work experience at IQF. These improvements are ongoing.

“All allegations have been fully investigated and appropriate lawful actions taken to assure we maintain a positive work environment,” the statement added.

Atlantic Capes also said that new mechanical sorting equipment reduced the need for hand-grading workers, eliminating 13 positions earlier this year. The company offered those workers 'alternative employment,' a company statement said.

Regarding NGA’s findings on industry conditions, the company added that, “Atlantic Cape Fisheries, Inc. and its IQF Custom Packing, LLC (IQF) facility in Fall River do not remotely resemble the seafood processors depicted in the NGA report.

“(Atlantic Capes) and IQF do not work with a contingent workforce to avoid compliance with legal obligations or to avoid the provision of state and federal benefits,” the company added. “In fact, (Atlantic Capes) provides benefits in excess of those required by law.”

Follow Mike Lawrence on Twitter @MikeLawrenceSCT

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